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1 Find Free (or Affordable) Quality Images & Stock Photos to Legally Use On Websites & Social Media Postshttps://www.buzzwords.co.nz/free-stock-photos-creative-commons/
https://www.buzzwords.co.nz/free-stock-photos-creative-commons/#respondSat, 17 Nov 2018 23:47:45 +0000https://www.buzzwords.co.nz/?p=666As marketers and business owners will testify, the struggle to find quality, usable stock photos for your website and social media is real: especially if you’re going to take the sensible precaution of ensuring you are legally entitled to use any 3rd party images you source (spoiler: you definitely should be doing this!)

Article Contents

What’s the issue? Finding high quality, subject and brand appropriate photographs, vectors and stock imagery to use for your digital marketing.

Here’s the thing: many businesses (far more than would readily admit), are happy to take the easy option and ‘re-appropriate’ (read: pinch) copyrighted photographs and vector images from the web and use them (uncredited) on their own websites, social media profiles and sometimes even printed collateral.

Our advice: STOP.

Think I’m scaremongering? These poor suckers had to pay $4,000 USD for reusing an image they found via a simple Google image search, without seeking the permission of the owner.

Don’t assume that any image you find without an explicit copyright license is “fair game” or “public domain”. In reality, the opposite is more likely the case.

“But stock images are so costly!”

This can undoubtedly be the case. Getty, Shutterstock, iStock and several other premium image searches frequently serve up the perfect image for your blog post or social share, but the price you pay for usage of protected IP can be astronomical.

I’d post an example here of an expensive image from one of these sites but then, of course, we’d have to pay to do so, so instead here’s an image of me wagging my finger in a “tut, tut – naughty, naughty” motion.

The “she’ll be ‘right” attitude

You may well be asking: what’s to stop me from finding an image I like via a premium stock photo repository and performing a reverse image search on Google Images or the excellent TinEye, in order to find the same images in use on other sites on the internet?

Maybe you’ll find a HD version, sans watermark, that you can download and use for your own project without having to fork out a few bucks?

But remember – tools like TinEye and reverse image searches in Google can also be used by the photographers and designers as a means of finding out who has been using their copyrighted original work without permission. That is when the sh*t can really hit the fan.

How can you find legally free to use (or affordably priced) quality images for use on your website, Facebook page and other online platforms?

Creative Commons is a specific type of intellectual property license that facilitates free, international, easy-to-implement usage of copyright – not just for images but also video, audio, literature and more.

With the internet being what it is, there are literally tens of thousands of websites that claim to offer professional level images under ‘Creative Commons’ licensing. As with anything on the web, quality varies (as does the range in volume of creative commons images available per service).

It’s also worth remembering that it’s not necessarily the best or most useful free sites that feature in the top 10 Google results, when it comes to search queries such as “best free images”.

Many paid image services have optimised their own content around such terms, and rank highly in the search engine results accordingly.

This post looks objectively at the top 10 websites and tools for “copyright free” (or more accurately creative commons copyright) images in terms of quality, volume of images offered and functionality.

Disclaimer: each site featured has been used by Buzzwords. This isn’t some skyscraper list of tools aiming to trump the current best ranked article on the same topic: it’s a collection of resources for copyright free images we at Buzzwords have found really useful and want to share with you because we’re nice people.

Pixabay is a resource used by Webmasters the world over, and for good reason.

The team at Pixabay have put in the hours to ensure that the many (1.5 million +) images searchable through their platform have exceptional category and tagging, meaning you’ll find it easier to find the right image for your needs.

The Pixabay website is also very intuitive and offers a range of different sizes to suit most needs for their extensive range of creative commons images.

Canva is more than an image repository site; it’s an entire eco-system for easily creating templated (but still beautiful) imagery for use on social media, print, eBooks, websites and more.

Sometimes (a little unfairly) tagged as “graphic design for idiots” – it certainly does make life wholly easier for those who want quick and dirty social media graphics.

But don’t underestimate the extensive range of free images available through the tool (over 300,000 according to Canva themselves).

The premium upgrade Canva for Work ensures full access to the entire repository of free images in Canva (as well as some other desirable features, such as personalised folders and instant resizing of images for different social media channels).

The search function and taxonomy (tagging and categories) implemented by Unsplash isn’t as intuitive as that offered by Pixabay or Pexels, and the repository is certainly not as extensive (but still boasts in excess of 500,000 unique images).

But what Unsplash lacks in range and intelligent image search functionality, it makes up for with the quality of the images on offer. Many of the images found on Unsplash are simply stunning, and in the Instagram / visual age, using images on your blogs or social feeds with the WOW factor is key.

Check out a couple of images we found for this blog post in next to no time:

Morguefile is another one of those hidden treasures for those looking for quality, artistic photographs to reuse for their own projects.

All the images found on Morguefile have been contributed by creatives (professional and amateur) from around the world.

There’s a paid element to Morguefile (who act as an aggregate search engine for paid repositories including Getty and Shutterstock), but a substantial number of the images found via the tool can be used for free under Creative Commons. Just ensure you filter your search by Morguefile only (to exclude the paid images).

PLiXs don’t offer a ton of images on their site. In fact, compared to the others on this list, it’s decidedly sparse.

We’ve included it here because, much like Unsplash, the quality of the images offered is extremely high. As such, PLiXs certainly won’t have a suitable image for every piece of content you produce, but it is certainly worth a place in your image repository arsenal.

StockVault is one of those sites that manages to be simultaneously fantastic and rubbish!

Why is it included here? Because any given search made using their intuitive search functionality yields lots of great quality and on-point results (StockVault have 128,000 original images in their database).

Why’s it also a pain in the arse? Well firstly, don’t be fooled into clicking on the very first results of any search. StockVault feature premium Shutterstock images at the top of every search results page (and these images are nearly always expensively priced). In fact, the ads for Shutterstock images on every page become annoying pretty quickly.

Secondly, even the non-paid results are somewhat hit and miss when it comes to the particular type of creative commons licensing offered. Many results are free to use only on a non-commercial basis (such as personal blogs and projects) but cannot be used for business purposes.

This is the creator’s prerogative, of course, but there’s no way to filter out those images from a search results page, meaning it can be quite time consuming to click on the images you like and check out the individual license types.

That said, if you’re prepared to spend some time panning for gold, it can be a worthwhile pursuit.

Aside from having an awesome name, we love Death To The Stock Photo primarily because of the fantastic quality of the images offered. Check out this gorgeous sample to get a feel for the type of thing on offer:

Unlike all the other services listed here, DTTSP operates on an email subscription basis.

Once signed up, you’ll receive regular emails offering free photo packs containing 20 images (usually on a specific theme or from a particular featured artist) which you can download and use as you see fit. We cannot overstate how superb the images included in these weekly missives often are. Seriously, subscribe and see for yourself: it’s totally worth it!

Death To The Stock Photo have changed their business model in recent years to offer a subscription based service (which we haven’t tried but apparently gives instant access to over 2,500 photographs). We’ve been happy with the quality of the (completely free) images provided monthly via email, although it goes without saying that this particular free service doesn’t come with any sort of search functionality.

RGBStock.com is another platform formed by an online community of professional and amateur photographers and graphic artists, who submit their own works under creative commons licensing to allow free use of their work.

Membership is required (but it’s free and worth it), with the site offering a pretty decent search functionality, category sorting and a healthy volume of images to choose from.

Gratisography is another service that offers something a bit different! Many of the images found on the site have a surreal, absurdist or outright comic book slant to them, making them perfect for certain niches or for standing out on social media.

Illustration through example is probably the best option here.

Gratisography is another site that features paid Shutterstock images at the top of every search, but not as aggressively as some others, such as StockVault.

In 2017, Creative Commons (the global organisation with a mission statement to help make free-use creative works more accessible to all), claimed to have made some vast improvements to their 1-stop-shop search tool, particularly around metadata (which helps with search functionality – providing you with the most appropriate results for your search terms).

You can read more about the project and the list of third party sources that the tool scrapes on the creative commons website.

Caveat: we’ve not yet tested the quality of the images found via CC Search (but are excited to see what it can do and add it to our tool-set!

Finally – A Handy Infographic To Keep You on The Copyrighting Straight & Narrow

Check out the following thorough, informative infographic on online image theft and how to avoid it, courtesy of berify.com (who, incidentally, explicitly state that their infographic can be embedded on other websites!)

Does the thought of using social media for your business terrify you? You’re not alone.

Many business owners, particularly here in a small community like Kapiti, are petrified of embracing social media in spite of the obvious opportunities it can offer their brand.

“I know everyone says we should be using Facebook, but all I see on there is people complaining!”

“The internet is just full of angry people looking for something to whinge about.”

“I haven’t got time for social networking – I’m trying to run a business!”

“If my business is on Facebook, we’ll be a target. I prefer to fly under the radar.”

Any of these sound familiar?

My advice to clients is always the same:

People can and will choose to talk about your business via social networking, good or bad, whether or not you’re active on social media yourselves.

Facebook community interest groups, frequented by literally thousands of local users, represent the most active and thriving part of Facebook’s whole ecosystem. These groups come in all shapes and sizes, and often have their own rules and regulations set up by volunteer group-admins to try and ensure members ‘play nicely’.

But this is the internet, after all, and misanthropes lurk around every corner.

Things can very quickly turn nasty or even start that way from the outset. A disgruntled customer, an ex-partner posing as an angry client, fake accounts created explicitly for the purpose of damaging a business’ reputation – we’ve seen all this and more.

Let’s face it, if you’re in business, you’ve already poked your head above the parapet to be shot at, to some extent. Social media just makes it easier, and can empower critics with a sense of anonymity, or at least provide a passive aggressive medium for them to throw stones (we all know at least one ‘keyboard warrior!’)

Once this truth is accepted, it’s only a hop, skip and jump to the next logical realisation: if you take steps to ensure you’re aware of these conversations, you can then become part of them, giving yourself the best possible chance to

mitigate any reputational damage

right any potential wrongs

learn and improve

influence or steer the conversation in a way that can actually benefit your business

Still feeling nervous about embracing social media? Social networks are here for the long haul: they’re not going away. If you need experienced social strategists to manage your social media presence while you concentrate on what you do best, hit us up today for a free consultation.

Handling Social Media Criticism – Some Golden Rules

So, accepting that we can’t prevent people from talking about our brand, but empowered with the knowledge that we can make sure we’re part of the conversation and influence its direction, how about some guidelines and golden rules for handling these situations?

Take a polite, conciliatory approach and tone. If you’ve been slammed in a public forum, it’s the easiest and most natural thing in the world to go in with all guns blazing. Regardless of the validity or reasonableness of the complaint, this is the worst thing you could possibly do. You’ll likely be perceived as unprofessional and unreasonable yourself.

Own your mistake. If the complainant has a valid reason to feel aggrieved, you can often turn your cock-up into a positive by addressing the issue and righting the wrong. Offer fair compensation to your social media critic and explain what you’ll be doing to ensure that the problem won’t be repeated. By doing so, you can successfully change the narrative from being a tale of dissatisfaction to a positive demonstration of quality customer service in action.

Be firm but fair. Where the complaint genuinely isn’t reasonable, regardless of how pleasant or otherwise the tone of your critic may be, politely give your side of the story without calling into doubt the motives or character of the complainant. Unnecessary tit-for-tat replies will come across as unprofessional and unseemly.

Don’t air your dirty laundry in public. On occasion, it’s necessary to open an ongoing dialogue with the offended party before an adequate resolution can be reached for both parties. In such instances, strive to communicate directly with the aggrieved party, either via private social messaging, or more traditional methods (telephone or face-to-face). This is not always possible, which brings us to the final golden rule….

Know when to ‘just leave it’. Once you’ve put your side across, keyboard warriors may try to suck you into a public war of words, regardless of how polite you’ve been in your riposte. Don’t let them; tell your story and move on. If someone wants to continue to simmer away like a teapot on the hob, let them: it will only reflect badly on themselves.

A Case Study – What Can Cheese Scones Teach Us About Handling Social Media Criticism?

Hightide Cafe in Paraparaumu Beach here on the Kapiti Coast is a wonderful venue, serving amazing food, and supporting the community in many and varied ways, from running poetry club events and open-mic afternoons to proactively supporting mental health causes and offering ‘pay-it-forward’ coffees for the less fortunate.

The customer service in the cafe is also exceptional; in fact it’s one of its main strengths. The cafe is a community hub, and has built a substantial army of exceptionally loyal brand-advocates.

Full disclosure: Hightide Cafe is a long-standing Buzzwords client. We’ve managed their Facebook page, run successful Facebook Ad campaigns for functions, and administered giveaways and competitions for the cafe, to great success over a period of years.

As part of their package, Hightide also benefit from our ‘Social Web’ brand monitoring service. In short, if conversations about the cafe take place on social media or in public forums on the internet, the multiple tools we use in house at Buzzwords are likely to catch and flag these conversations, both good and bad.

As you’d expect, feedback is mostly glowing – Hightide have received TripAdvisor’s certificate of excellence on a number of occasions, and have consistently excellent reviews and feedback across their social channels. But even the most popular of businesses can find themselves on the receiving end of a social-media tongue-lashing.

One customer recently took to Neighbourly to decry Hightide’s decision to raise the price on their cheese scones by a dollar, from $4.50 to $5.50.

A smattering of responses followed, some defending the cafe and some others agreeing that $5.50 for a scone, on the face of it, seemed a bit steep.

Then, having picked up on the conversation with our monitoring tools, we were able to ensure cafe owner Leigh Healy got right of reply, observing the golden rules of engagement:

Polite, explanatory and conciliatory. More positive responses were quick to follow (this slideshow is just a sampling of the support Leigh received):

If we left the story here, it would show how Leigh was able to turn a potentially harmful review into a win – but as can sometimes happen, this was the catalyst for something much bigger.

The post quickly became the most discussed topic on Neighbourly (with mostly positive and supportive messages for Leigh and her business), and a Dominion Post journalist picked up on the furore and got in touch with Leigh.

The story – “Would you pay $5.50 for a cheese scone?” – which you can also read in full on Stuff – ran on the front page of one of the local newspapers here in Kapiti (the Kapiti Observer) as well as on page 3 of the Dom Post.

Next, TVNZ’s Breakfast team started discussing the issue, which led to Leigh receiving an early morning telephone call and a live interview:

It didn’t end there. The following week saw yet more mainstream media coverage, with a half page piece in the Dom Post again (in the op-ed section), another article on Stuff, and further mentions on radio and in the regional newspapers.

To cut a long story (relatively) short, Hightide Cafe have had to quadruple the amount of scones they make each day for the past two weeks to cope with demand! And to reiterate, the whole happy chain of events came initially from a social media complaint, picked up by Buzzwords social monitoring tools, which was then managed superbly by the business owner.

Yes, fortune played its part, but to a certain extent Leigh made her own luck by investing in keeping an eye on her brand and following the golden rules of social media engagement.

Could your business benefit from brand monitoring, social media strategy & management, or simply having savvy, professional copy writers on hand to manage and control social media mentions of your brand? Get in touch with us today for a free consultation to see how we can help you conquer the social networking in 2018.

BONUS TIP: ‘Social Proofs’ – Building Positive Social Media Reviews

As stated at the start of the article, if you can rid yourself of the scaredy-cat mind-set when it comes to social media, opportunities are plentiful.

One of the most effective ways of manipulating your digital presence to great effect is through ensuring that your business, whether it be product or service based, receives a healthy volume of positive social media user reviews, across a range of online platforms.

If you check out Hightide Cafe on TripAdvisor, Facebook or Google, you’ll see that they receive both a high quantity of reviews and a consistently high average rating.

It might surprise you to learn that the effects of positive reviews for your business go far beyond the obvious ones, such as building your reputation through word of mouth.

Google place great weight in 2017 on what they term ‘social proofs’ (any positive recommendation, review or testimonial for a business) found both on their own business platform (Google My Business) and also on the big social networks and (reputable) directory listing sites.

Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) – or the results you get in Google when you do each specific search – are calculated by complicated and ever changing algorithms, but what we do know is that ‘social proofs’ are one of the most crucial factors that Google will take into account in 2018.

If your website (or even your social media pages if you’re a business without a website) isn’t ranking in Google for the search terms important to your customers, focus on soliciting positive reviews for your Google listing, your Facebook page, TripAdvisor and any other relevant social platform where you’re business is listed.

How? Talk to your brand advocates; encourage them to take 10 minutes out of their day to sing your praises online, and make sure you mix it up by asking different people to go to different platforms and spread the love around, giving you a healthy social proof portfolio.

In truth, there are actually many different types of social proof and we’re only scratching the surface here, but this low investment (a little time & charm) strategy can definitely reap rewards over the long haul.

Who do you know that could benefit from implementing a more structured and managed social media strategy to grow their business brand and ultimately increase revenue? Send this blog post to a friend in need, and they’ll get a free initial consultation – no strings attached.

]]>https://www.buzzwords.co.nz/running-scared-social-media/feed/0Why do I need a Copywriter?https://www.buzzwords.co.nz/why-do-i-need-a-copywriter/
https://www.buzzwords.co.nz/why-do-i-need-a-copywriter/#respondWed, 08 Apr 2015 02:06:31 +0000http://www.buzzwords.co.nz/?p=399You’re literate and eloquent enough to write your own copy, right? Why do you need to use a copywriter?

Many people are more than adequate amateur writers and there is certainly a persuasive argument that no-one else is capable of capturing the essence of your ideas, ethos or values quite as well as you, particularly in very specific or niche areas.

There are several compelling reasons to consider using skilled copywriters and content creators. Important considerations often overlooked when choosing to write your own copy include:

SEO. A professional copywriter will ensure that the requisite keyword analysis work is undertaken before even typing a word of your web copy. When it comes to constructing the copy you need, you rest easy in the knowledge that Buzzwords has the nous to fully keyword-optimise our work without sacrificing natural flow or tone. And that’s without even going into things like meta tags and other SEO considerations. If hitting page 1 of Google is essential to the profitability of your business, serious consideration should be given to using a professional copywriter with a thorough working knowledge of SEO practices.

Consistency in tone and brand message. Writing good copy isn’t just about good grammar and diction. Generating copy for business necessitates strategic writing: a skill learned and honed over many years. A good copy writer always writes with explicit purpose as well as clarity to attain the delicate balance between stimulating interest, informing the reader, and using just enough call-to-action to secure conversion without alienating the consumer.

Your strength can be your weakness. If you’re truly passionate about your work, that’s wonderful. Confucius says “Choose a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life.” But customers often won’t care about the labour of love that’s gone into your product or service. As copywriters, we know that it is benefits that sell. Hiring an independent copywriter with a fresh perspective to construct powerful, engaging copy is a significant advantage.

Time constraints. What is your time worth? Seriously, think about it. If you’re in business, it’s likely you’ve got enough on your plate without struggling to perfect your business literature. Perhaps you charge for your time by the hour. How much of your time will it take to craft copy to the standard required to achieve your goals? It’s typically a false economy to look at a copywriter’s hourly rates and then decide you can save money by doing the work in house. At Buzzwords, we’re experienced specialists who can usually expedite quality work promptly, saving you expenditure of your most precious commodity: time. Without doubt, this is the number 1 reason why a business might need a professional copywriter.

Credibility. Ok, so you’re a decent writer. But does ‘decent’ cut the mustard when it comes to marketing your business? This is your livelihood, after all. It’s worth considering the findings of a report produced by Massey University academics in 2013 which claimed literacy rates in New Zealand have flat lined and even slightly dropped in certain areas over the last decade compared to steady growth in other developed countries. Literacy Aotearoa estimate that there are over a million New Zealanders who struggle with literacy beyond basic levels. Don’t let your ego damage your business. Be honest with yourself. If you’re a capable but unspectacular and unfocused writer, invest in a specialist, and the results will speak for themselves.

All of which is certainly not to say that you shouldn’t be prepared to give writing your own copy a whirl; merely that it’s essential to go into the process with your eyes wide open and a willingness for honest self-appraisal.

You may find you are more than capable of producing quality writing. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of satisfaction from a job well done, especially when you’ve flexed those creative muscles to produce a quality piece of work. If you have the chops that’s fantastic; perhaps a future career in copywriting beckons!

On the other hand, if you’re left frustrated by your best efforts it might pay dividends to invest in our professional content editing service and have your original work polished by one of our copy editors.

And if you simply decide that writing copy isn’t your forte, remember there’s no shame in failure. Your talents lie elsewhere and your self-awareness will hold you in good stead. Check out our range of writing packages to see how we can plug the gap and leave you to concentrate on what you do best!